Quark-gluon evolution in early stage of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

A set of coupled kinetic equations describing in the Abelian approximation a mixture of quarks and self-interacting gluons is formulated and solved numerically. The model includes the Schwinger-like mechanism for particle creation in a strong field as well as two-particle elastic collisions between all mixture components in the Landau approximation of small-angle scattering. The process of equilibration at the initial energy density exhibits a dominant quark creation in the very early time of interaction. It is shown that damping of energy density oscillations due to elastic scattering of perturbative quarks and gluons is not strong enough to reach thermodynamic equilibrium in a reasonable relaxation time. A possible account for a such behavior is discussed.